The Oldest Books in the World

The vast majority of writings from ancient times have not survived until today. So we are fortunate that some have made it to us after all this time. Have you ever wondered what the oldest surviving books in the world are? This video takes you through them, region by region.

Contents
0:00 What Counts as a Book?
03:30 East Asia
06:32 South Asia
09:22 West Asia
12:08 Africa
15:39 Europe
17:14 America

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► REFERENCES
English translations of the ancient books:
Shi Jing
Rig Veda
Enmerkar-Lugalbanda
Epic of Gilgamesh
Pyramid Texts
The Iliad
The Odyssey
Popul Vuh

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[underratedbub]

Just wanted to mention that certain texts like the Vedas and the Avesta survived for longer not because they were copied in writing, as you suggest, but because they had schools of rigorous oral transmission to pass them down. Often there was even an aversion to writing the texts down. As a result, the earliest written manuscripts we have of these works is from medieval times!

[a_lucientes]

What a awful crime to posterity Diego Landa committed when he burned the Mayan codices because he assumed they contained nothing but _scribbles and works of devils._ Always holding out hope that some day a cache of them might be found as happened at Nag Hammadi with outlawed Christian, Gnostic and Hermetic writings.

[infinite]

I hope so too dear, as a South Asian, I am really sad at the destruction of Nalanda, Taxila and many Indian universities, which had been functioning since the times of the Guptas. Many books were burnt by the middle-eastern armies, it is even believed that the library of Nalanda had some 9 million manuscripts( read it somewhere) where Hindus, Buddhists and Jains came to study from different parts of the world, even Greeks and Romans at a time. The bulk was so much that it burnt continuously for 3 months. However, I bear no brunt towards anyone, but still many manuscripts are available in India and I sincerely hope for more older writings to be found. I am also sad about the American history, we have many similarities.
Fun fact: the oldest grammarian is believed to be the Indian/South-Asian Hindu sage Panini, who wrote Astadhyayi, a Sanskrit grammar between some 800-500 BC. Another one is Tollakappiyam, a Tamil grammar written by Tollakapiyar in the period between 300 BC. Sanskrit is one of the oldest Indo-European language, while Tamil is the oldest Dravidian language archeologically.

[ranapratapsingh]

One of the oldest texts from India is Rig Veda dating to more than 2000 BCE.

[Wallyworld]

Thank you Dr. Miano for covering this subject. A few years ago I read The Epic of Gilgamesh and I became curious what was the other oldest books that are still around today. I was shocked how hard it was to find what the oldest books are because when I googled I was getting irrelevant answers.

[tassia]

In Greece we never stopped learning Homer's Iliad and Odyssey in school to this day and Isiod's Theogonia also!Great video thanks!

[miketheburns]

I read a "book" (more like a collection of poems) from India that was told to me to have been the "oldest text in the world". At the time I read it (2008, maybe?) it had only been translated into German. It was a very philosophical book. Some of the text I remember went something like "is a fruit a fruit because of its 'fruit-ness'? or because of its shape? or perhaps its utility? If we change the shape of the fruit, or cut it up into pieces, or use it for decoration instead of for eating - is it still a fruit?". But I can't for the life of me find this book/collection of poems. But it was in an ancient form of writing pre-dating Sanskrit, which is why it took so long to translate and was only translated by a German scholarly team at the time. Does anyone perhaps know the text I'm thinking of? I believe it was something like 10 or 12 philosophical poems. I'd love to read it again if I can find it.

[seidr]

As an history fan hearing stories of people burning history books or texts is extremely distressing. Just imagine what knowledge we have lost.

[MTd]

A correction. The division you give of Samhitas, Aryanyakas, Upanishads and Bramanas are a general division of Vedas, samhitas being organized into many parts including Rig Veda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvaveda and they span a larger period ending a bit after budhism. Rig Veda is the oldest layer of samhitas indeed, with "comentaries" regarding it divided into Aryanyakas, Upanishads and Bramanas .

[davidinmossy]

imagine your entire culture reduced to four book because of the ignorance of another group of humans. Such a shame ! Just the loss of the medical knowledge is a tragedy !

[jeremysmith]

Lugalbanda II: Electric Lugaloo
On a serious note when I think of all the literature that has been lost to time I always flash back to 1 particular piece of writing, "Thunder, Perfect Mind." (TPM) While not nearly as old as some of the books mentioned here, and a shorter form poetic work, it reminds me of the magnitude of what we are missing. I find TPM amazing; it comes from a voice not as often heard in ancient literature, what could certainly be understood to be the divine female. It is as beautiful as it is impactful. In fact it speaks to much of what women face in modernity regarding what actually is a woman's role, how she is perceived, and if others can hold the contradictions concerning womanhood in their minds as easily as women must contain all of those often disparate facets in their very being.

This brilliant poem was completely lost to history before the discovery of the Nag Hamadi library. A story so wonderful, that holds just as much meaning in every day life as it did nearly two millennia ago, that had blinked out of memory and therefore existence, but that roared back to public consciousness once found, translated, and made available to the masses. TPM just always gets my mind racing about what other immense works of creativity and knowledge that remain lost and if any are still out there somewhere, waiting to be found while time slowly destroys them and the virtual timer for finding them ticks lower and lower.

Thanks for the great video, as always, Professor Miano! You do some of the best work on the platform in your field and seeing there is a new video from you is always exciting. I always have to drop what I am doing and take a history break whenever one of your upload notifications go off.

[NewNecro]

I love this somewhat comparative list taking a sample from each region instead of just going for the oldest range available.
I hope there will more content like this showing oldest recorded names, attested rulers, oldest known pantheons/religions from different parts of the world.

Also on theme of lost works, some of the lesser known religions/pantheons, civilisations (like Elam, Olmec), languages which aren't talked often about because of scarsity of material to work with.

[adisura]

Man I wonder how many of such works won't ever come to light all because of how human history played out and time.

[pandamancer]

Another book that deserves an honorable mention in the east asia category is the Shan Hai Jing. This book contains a collection of Chinese Mythology, zoology, herbology and geography (some real/ some fantasy).

The earliest mentioned copy of it comes from 4th century BCE (although the authencity of it is contested). But according to tradition, before it was compiled into a book. Those stories are insribed in potteries along with the depiction of different mythological beast found in the book. When those potteries were gradually lost, they compiled it into a book without those illustrations unfortunately.

(They even have a vivid description of animals that resembles like the giraffe, zebra, Atlantic flyingfish etc which is really buffling given that they are not endemic in China). Pretty cool

[crnpp]

Talking about old books, back in middle school back in the late 80s I had to use my grandfather's encyclopedia for research on the moon landing. I spent an hour trying to find it until I realized his encyclopedia was from the Kennedy administration, so the moon landing hadn't even happened yet! I thought it was both hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time.

[magd]

The Rig Veda survived because it had a meaning worth remembering

[repeatdefender]

My heart breaks for all the destroyed and forgotten texts of time. It's still happening today, that's the worst part. You'd think we would know better, as a species, by now.

[srikanthmajor]

Excellent video. One point regarding Rig Veda which i feel you may have missed is the geography that was mentioned in it. The reference to river Saraswati which slowly becomes a deity from a river. Corroborated by on-ground archaeology. Am i on the right track Doctor

[Emperor.Arasaka]

Sad to see David not mentioning the oldest book of all time - Twilight.

Historians date it to around the 33rd century BCE, at a time when the concept of how to write a piece of literature had not yet been developed.

[reneechavira]

Every time I watch one of your videos I learn something I didn't know about history. There's not many videos or video creators I can say that about. Your YouTube channel is making me think about getting commercial free YouTube cuz I want to scream every time an ad pops up. No ads are more important than the content of you videos even the funny videos 💜